Stage 2 changes revealed

Stage 2 will be played on patch 1.34. As a result, new hero Baptiste and new map Paris will be eligible for play during the stage.

Lots of changes coming in #OWL2019 Stage 2, including Baptiste’s debut, a slew of hero changes, the Paris map, and a new map order.https://t.co/VypWtCVFBZ pic.twitter.com/zocFBOKSeE
— Overwatch League (@overwatchleague) March 19, 2019

The patch for Stage 2 will be the same patch that was just released to the live servers. The patch includes the addition of Baptiste and changes to many of Overwatch's heroes.

The Stage 2 map pool has been revealed. It will include assault map Paris for the first time in the Overwatch League or Contenders. It will join Hanamura and Temple of Anubis in the assault stage pool. Other maps in the Stage 2 pool will be Busan, Lijiang Tower, Oasis, Blizzard World, Eichenwalde, Kings Row, Junkertown, Watchpoint: Gibralter and Rialto.

With the new map pool also comes a new map order for sets in Stage 2. Assault maps will be the second maps of matches instead of hybrid. This is because assault is more likely to decide the series part-way through a match because of a draw.

Matches will now be scheduled for longer time blocks in response to matches repeatedly running over the scheduled time slot. The new time slots are visible on the Stage 2 schedule.

The league office will also be adding additional tiebreakers to reduce the risk of a tie for seeding in the stage playoffs and the playoffs at the end of the season. The exact changes to the tiebreak rules will be announced later.

These changes won't take effect during the stage playoffs and instead will become active at the start of Stage 2 in April. The start of Stage 2 is April 4 between the Philadelphia Fusion and New York Excelsior.

I also mentioned the breaks, if you add up the ads and breaks for each match then it is significant, this is again putting 1+1 and getting 2.

I'm well aware ads are a big part of life nowadays but there are better ways to manage them, do you watch tv shows and get an ad every 5 minutes? no, it's every 15 minutes or so, why can't they pump out 2 minutes of ads BEFORE the match begins, then have another 30 seconds between maps?

Between ads, breaks and all the talking people do, it's no wonder the matches are running on a lot longer than they would like, I mean it's common sense to me really, considering every match is a goatfest you hardly need analysts talking about it for ages do you?

Ads, breaks and long talks from analysts and what are you rewarded with, goats vs goatd 99% of the time? I mean give people ads if the content is worth it but don't tell me all the downtime the OWL has is worth it when it's infested with goats.